Performance
In 2023, as part of the Festival d’Automne à Paris, Oussama Mhanna took part in the musical development and direction of IRIS, a large-scale performance created by Italian choreographer Alessandro Sciarroni.
Presented at the historic Piscine de la Butte-aux-Cailles in Paris, an Art Nouveau swimming pool, the project brought together music, voice, movement and sport in an immersive in situ performance. The audience was invited to move freely through the space, encountering swimmers, performers and a vocal ensemble in a setting where the public swimming pool became both a stage and a symbolic landscape.
As Music Director of the vocal ensemble, Oussama Mhanna led the musical and choral work of the project with Ensemble Dynamique. The music, composed by Aurora Bauzà and Pere Jou, was inspired by Sicut Cervus, the famous motet by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525–1594), reimagined through a contemporary sound world.
On a symbolic level, IRIS explores the swimming pool as a place of abandonment, regeneration and physical transcendence. In dialogue with the context of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the performance created a poetic meeting point between artistic practice and athletic presence, between the fragility of the body and the collective power of sound.
A revival of the project was presented in May 2025 by the Comédie de Genève, as part of Out of the Box — Biennale des Arts inclusifs, at the Centre Sportif Le Sapay.
Credits
Concept & Creation: Alessandro Sciarroni
Music: Aurora Bauzà and Pere Jou, after Sicut Cervus by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Vocal Ensemble: Ensemble Dynamique
Music / Choir Direction: Oussama Mhanna
Production: Festival d’Automne à Paris
Videos
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhBvOhuVq04
Sicut Cervus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEMU9iFDvxQ
